Some will say the best way to build your squat is to...well, squat! Squat heavy, squat consistently, and squat with PERFECT technique and your squat will increase. Unfortunately the reality is that most athletes, and most lifters for that matter, including professionals, don't have perfect form. Their body has become imbalanced from injury or years of training and they lack the mobility that the human body was intended to have to squat with flawless form. Now, one could and should work to improve mobility, especially of the hips, knees, and ankles, which all must be mobile in order to complete a squat with proper technique. However, I refuse to believe that even with work, anyone can achieve such a PERFECT squat that they shouldn't do some sort of assistance work to try to build it.
My favorite such assistance exercise is the pause squat. I have always struggled with squats, and admittedly, they are my weakest lift. I have had a number of coaches work with me to improve my form, and I have reached a point where I have found a technique that is comfortable and that works for me. Unfortunately, after years of knee problems, it has taken me a long time to build the strength and size in my legs that I once had.
This past winter break, while I was working on programming and researching various assistance work for lower body training, I stumbled onto a video of Brandon Lilly and Berea Barbell powerlifters pause squatting. The benefits of pause squatting immediately resonated with me.
1) Explosive work with no need for bands, chains, or other accommodating resistance--Because pause squats force the squatter to hold the squat position in the hole for a number of seconds, the stretch reflex is almost completely eliminated from the movement. Essentially, you can't use the momentum created by the eccentric portion of the lift to explode out of the hole. So, you have to learn to quickly and forcefully contract the muscles necessary to begin the concentric portion of the lift in order to complete it.
2) Strengthening the Stabilizer Muscles--My biggest problem when squatting is that I lack the abdominal and lower back strength to maintain a neutral spine position throughout the lift when I get tired or the weight gets heavy. Pausing for a period of time in the hole forces you to control the weight, keeping all the squatting muscles contracted, including stabilizer muscles like the lower back, upper back, and abdominals. These muscles are just as vital for squatting as the glutes, calves, hamstrings, and quads, and without them, you squat technique will break down easily. Since starting pause squatting, my lower back strength and health has increased dramatically, and my ability to hold a neutral spine position throughout the movement is improving as well.
3) Comfort in the Hole--Some young athletes and squatters who are not used to doing the movement have a difficult time reaching depth, and if they can reach full depth, they have a hard time making each squat look the same. Pause squatting will help you to find the best spot for your body in the hole. When you sit in the hole, your body automatically adjusts to find the strongest position, (your bodies awesome that way). The more I have pause squatted, the more my reps look alike, which means my form is improving and my comfort at the bottom of the movement has increased dramatically.
4) Increased Mobility--Around the time I hurt my back last year my mobility was going to shit. Maybe I was doing too much work, maybe my mobility was just never good, I'm not sure. However, since football season has ended and I returned to heavy squatting and added pause squats as assistance work, I have noticed that getting down to full depth and even past parallel on squats is no longer an issue for me. Even better, my setup for the deadlift and the clean has improved! My hip, ankle, and knee flexibility has increased because when pause squatting, you focus on full range of motion with submaximal weight, which allows your muscles and joints to adapt and become used to such a full range of motion. Many times, athletes just want to squat heavy all the time, but they use a partial range of motion. Then, when someone forces them, or they decide to try a full range of motion squat, they are unable too because they've built up such a bad habit of not squatting to full depth that their body has adapted to that range of motion and become so tight that they are unable to go lower. Pause squatting will help reinforce good technique and a full range of motion squat.
5) Increased Work Capacity--Because pause squats are done with submaximal weight, (I've used anywhere between 50-65% of my 1RM) I try to find ways to manipulate the intensity of the exercise. One way I've done this is to increase the length of the pause, but another is to use short rest periods between sets. Usually around 45 seconds, we have used short rest periods to increase our work capacity. When does form usually start to break down? When the weights get heavy or you get tired! So what's the best way to work on this? Force the body to use good technique with submaximal weight and short rest periods. You will begin to fatigue, and you must learn to continue to keep your muscles tight throughout the movement when pause squatting.
Start using pause squats as assistance work and watch your squat sore and your technique improve. Here's a video of a pause squat session I did about a month ago on my dynamic lower body day.
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